Citi Bike Sharing Program – New York City (Free Day Pass)

Update: Get a free 24-Hour Access Pass to Citi Bike with any Mastercard, which will get you unlimited short bike rentals (less than 30-minutes to avoid overtime fees) within a 24-hour period. Register by 9/30/13, use by 10/31/13.

This is pretty cool. New York City is launching a bike-share program called Citi Bike this summer (supposedly late July 2012), with 10,000 bikes and 600 stations for pick-up and drop-off. I’ve seen and used similar bike-sharing programs in Europe, and they seemed to be very practical and moderately popular. I’ve never ridden a bike in NYC, are there many bike lanes or will you be busy avoiding taxis? Combined with the subway, this makes it even easier to get around without a car.

A 24-hour membership will cost $9.95, but an annual membership is only $95 a year and will allow you unlimited trips of up to 45 minutes. A small fee applies after that to encourage you to return the bike quickly for other people to use.

Citi is the primary sponsor to the tune of $41 million and Mastercard is handling the payment infrastructure in addition to contributing $6.5 million. The program is run privately, with no public funding. I hope it works out.

Comments

Ouch, $10 for 24 hours seems steep. The scheme we have in London is only £1 for 24 hours. I don’t know how much was government subsidised, but they’re ran by Barclays bank. Either way, I’m sure they’ll come in handy over there.

Actually, ten bucks for a whole day’s a lot more reasonable than most bike rental options in New York City–I think the going rate in bike shops starts at about $30 for a day. The City does a pretty good job of documenting its extensive network of bike routes–if anyone’s interested, this link will take you to a detailed map http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/bikemaps.shtml.

The costs started a bit cheaper in DC, and they remain cheaper than NYC, I suppose due to the smaller required footprint. DC’s program is $75/yr or $7 per 24 hours. It used to be $5 per 24 hours, but just went up. Overall, when you consider the cost of a Metro fare, these bike are a great deal. Keep in mind that this program is for point-to-point transportation, NOT a day-long rental of a single bike. They place stations all over the city, so you don’t have to keep the bike and lock it up, you just park it at another station. In fact, if you keep it more than 30 minutes at a time they charge you by the hour from there.

Yeah, I’m also in DC and I CaBi is super successful. I agree that you need to understand the model to understand the price–these bikes are not intended for leisurely rides on a Saturday, they are intended as point-to-point transportation. Most people use them for less than 30 minutes to commute and incur no charges apart from their $75 annual membership.

I did this in Paris when I lived there for six months. It’s called VeLib. It was awesome, and they’re a huge hit. As in London, it was much cheaper, as the gov’t was subsidizing them (which is a great idea, since it reduces strain on other public transit modes — spend some money on bikes to reduce the need to buy extra buses).

And to the complanypants whining about bike safety — bicycle accidents are in fact rare, and most car-bicycle accidents would be prevented if the cyclist followed normal traffic laws (not the “hey I’m on a bike, so I can run stop signs, red lights, etc). Following the general guidelines found here helps too:

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